


Decision

by AnselaJonla



Series: Prompt fills [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 18:49:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16001189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnselaJonla/pseuds/AnselaJonla
Summary: Prompt fill: [WP] You're a railroad worker. One day, a train loses control and is about to run over a group of unaware workers. In a rushed decision you change its course to the second rail, killing the lone worker that you saw there. A week passes and you hear a knock on your door. It's the deceased man's wife.





	Decision

"Yeah, yeah, hold your fucking horses," I grumble as I fumble for my keys. I don't know why I'm bothering opening the door, it's probably just another leech on society, aka tabloid reporter, wanting to hear "my side of the story". Yeah right, they just want something they can twist and misquote to make  _me_  look like the bad guy.

I made the only choice I could. The lives of a dozen men weighed against the life of one. I chose to tear only one family apart, instead of many.

Correction, two families. My wife left me before I was even released to come home, walked out and took the kids with her, the media already having told her that she was married to a murderer. Yeah, that's how they spun it, making it out to be my fault entirely.

It's not a reporter on the doorstep. They don't tend to slap me so hard in the face so hard that I'll probably get whiplash. I see the police officer stationed outside for my protection start to move towards us, and shake my head. This isn't some random idiot who believes the lies spread by the Scum and the Daily Fail.

"You killed him!"

Ah. This is... awkward.

"Jean. I..."

" _You killed him._  You killed my Danny!" She's crying. I'm not good with crying people. Especially not when they happen to be almost a sister to me. Her kids pretty much think I'm family, for fuck's sake.

Well, they used to. They probably don't any more.

"Come in. Cuppa?"

She sniffles and nods, slipping in past me. I head to the kitchen, busying my hands with the practiced motions of making a cup of tea. I hear Jean tut as she cracks a window open in the living room. I don't blame her, it's probably a bit rank in there if you've not been living in it for almost a week straight.

I slip a drop of whiskey in my drink, the last bit in the bottle. I don't think I can face this conversation without help. The bottle clinks as I drop it in the recycling. I hug my mug tight as I curl up in my comfy armchair, body turned towards Jean.

"Tell me what happened. I want to hear  _your_  story, not what the public's been told," she says eventually.

My hands shake. I really don't like thinking about that night.

"We were doing routine maintenance along the track, yeah. Trimming the branches, weeding along the rails, that sort of stuff. It was all planned work, details were published in the weekly operating notice, the temporary speed restriction signs were all up, and the automatic warning system signals were working. All drivers on that route knew exactly where we were working. We'd already had three, maybe four calls to clear the track for a train coming through. One of them was stopped, because we couldn't clear the line in time. So we knew that everything was functioning. Then the call came in. Clear the line again. We couldn't, not quickly, and it was radioed back. The signals were set to stop the train."

I took a swig of my fortified tea. My hands are shaking even more, slopping the liquid onto my stained trousers. I swallow the knot building in my throat. Jean deserves to hear this from me. It's the least I owe her.

"Control radioed back. The train was still coming. The driver... he ignored the speed restriction, and the warning system... it should have applied the brakes automatically, but it  _didn't_. And he'd just passed the single yellow, still doing 125. He wasn't going to stop at the red in time. It was an imminent SPAD. We were trying to gather the equipment up, to clear the tracks, but there wasn't  _time_."

"And even if you'd abandoned it..." Jean had been a rail worker's wife for a long time. She knew from Danny's stories why you never, ever left equipment on a line.

"We wanted to do all we could to prevent a passenger train derailment, Jean. And when I saw that old mechanical points lever... I'm  _so sorry_  Jean. I knew Danny was on that siding, and I still pulled the lever. I could see the headlights of the train, and I hoped he'd be able to clear the line in time, but... it was one life, versus a dozen lives on the track and who knew how many on the train. It was no choice at all, not really."

I can still see the train roaring down the track. Hear the squealing as the driver belatedly applies the brakes. When I close my eyes I see it rock alarmingly as it hits the points, threatening to derail as it moves onto the siding still doing over a tonne.

I can hear the crunch as it slams into Danny, who'd been hanging in his harness from a tree over the siding, trimming back branches. He hadn't stood a chance.

"And if you could go back?"

I sit in silence for a few moments, playing with my mug. What I was about to say... I think Jean already knows it, but she has to hear me say it. "You know I'd do it again, Jean. And I know, if our situations were reversed, Danny would have made the same decision."

Jean is crying again by the time I finish speaking. That's okay, because I can't. I haven't been able to, not yet. Maybe not ever. I don't  _deserve_  to cry, not when I made the decision that killed Danny.

I get up to make another round of drinks. I can't deal with this, any of this. But I can be strong, for now, for Jean.


End file.
